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lulled in my throat. “You are making this really hard.” I exhaled. Still locked in a bear hug, he gently rocked us side to side.
    “Hard?” I could feel his mouth smile against my neck. “Hold that thought for later.” He pulled his head up out of the crook of my neck, where he had been nuzzling me, and crossed the room. “We’d better get going.”
    “It’ll be fine. Trust me; we are not missing anything exciting by being a little late.”
    I shut off the bedroom light, checked my makeup again in the hallway mirror as I passed it, and grabbed the birthday gift. Soon I was sitting next to Jesse, in his huge black pickup truck, on our way to the birthday party.
    Brentwood was the next town over from Santa Monica but, in this part of California, all the cities had merged together over the years due to massive urban sprawl. If it weren’t for the welcome signs, posted at the city limits, a person couldn’t tell when they left one area, to enter the other. In the older neighborhoods, the lanes of the streets were uncomfortably narrow. Streets that were intended to accommodate only one car width had been expanded to two lanes over the years, as the population grew. It was almost comical driving Jesse’s lifted pickup truck in an area dominated by German engineering; low slung Audis nestled next to the curb, parked alongside sleek BMWs and flashy Mercedes.
    After driving up a steep hill, on the private road which led to the stately house, we rolled up in front of the ornate black wrought iron gate of my childhood home, the one I had just moved out of at the beginning of summer to move into an apartment with Kat. It was a modern traditional estate, situated behind gates, on a large lot in the Mandeville Canyon area of Brentwood. Nestled among other four to five thousand square foot homes, it boasted an ultimate ‘great room’ with vaulted Birch ceilings. When I was a child, I loved how the wood made me feel like a little bit of the trees from outside were inside where I played. The grounds around the house were equally amazing: a wonderful pool house, a six-stall barn, a tennis court, for the time in my life when I thought I wanted to be a tennis pro, a guest house with an office, where Dad sometimes worked from home, and a life-size chess board, built right into the grass with black and white squares of cement.
    With his mouth hanging open, Jesse gawked at the sight of the place. “I had no idea...I’m impressed.” He pushed the down button on the truck door and the rumble of the engine filled the air as the window smoothly retracted. He stared blankly at the intercom speaker box for a moment, like he was about to place an order at the drive through. He looked a little pale.
    “You okay?”
    Eying the keypad on the box he asked, “Do I just press the button?”
    “No, wait. I have the code to open the gate,” I chuckled.
    The lift kit on Jesse’s truck made it too high to reach the keypad from inside, so I jumped out and ran around the front of the car. I entered the four digit code and climbed back in the truck, as the gate rattled and opened slowly.
    I pursed my lips and sucked a breath in through my nose. “It’s show time.” Although my focus was straight ahead, I saw Jesse nod in my peripheral vision.
    As we drove up to the house, the driveway was packed with several other cars. Must be some of Dad’s lawyer friends. I could tell by the makes and models which belonged to lawyers and which belonged to Cinnamon’s ditzy girlfriends. Pretty sure the brand new Porsche belonged to one of Dad’s clients. Then my vision settled on a familiar outline. Fuck! Jason’s car was there too. I looked at Jesse.
    “Looks like my dad invited Jason; that’s his car.”
    “This should be amusing,” he said dryly.
    “Yeah, define amusing.” I gripped the handle of the pink gift bag with white knuckles as Jesse pulled the truck to the side of the long driveway, behind the last car in line.
    “God, I can’t